Just as I start to feel the build of overwhelming pleasure coarse through me from inside, he reaches his fingers around and begins massaging me, pushing me over the edge. I cry out through my orgasm, feeling him pulsing inside of me as he grows close. As I come down off of my own wave, he pulls out to cum. He grabs at my back, but I quickly turn around and pull him into my mouth, wanting to drink him in. I feel the hot liquid spilling out in my mouth as he makes noises unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him before.
“Well, that was unexpected,” he pants, smiling down at me.
He reaches down and pulls me up to my feet, kissing me softly before I press my head to his chest and wrap my arms around him. We crash down onto hi
s bed and lay there for a long time, tangled up in each other’s skin.
“I’ve missed this,” I whisper as I twirl my fingers through his curls.
“What?” he asks.
“Feeling close to you.”
“Is that what this was all about?” he teases, tugging at the fabric of my dress.
“Sort of,” I smirk. “I guess. I didn’t think about it too much. It just seemed like it couldn’t hurt to spice things up a bit. It seems like you only ever see me looking frumpy.”
“You never look frumpy.” He rolls me over and spreads his hands across my curves. “Even when you’re in sweats, I know all of this is waiting underneath and it drives me mad.”
I bite my lip, thinking of how strange he’s been acting. I want to say he has a funny way of showing it sometimes if that’s how he feels, but I don’t want to spoil the moment. And I definitely don’t want to slip and accidentally blurt out that just yesterday Bridgett and I were wondering if he is responsible for all the recent threats to my life.
“There is something I need to tell you,” I confess, realizing I never told him about the letter. “I think the Elites are threatening me again.”
“What are you talking about?” he jerks up with concern. “What happened?”
I tell him all about the strange tampering with my food followed by the hanging doll and death threat letter. His face tenses up with anger as I speak. He clenches his fists, and I wonder if I might have to keep him from storming out to beat Malcolm’s ass when I’m done explaining everything.
“Do you think Bridgett has anything to do with it?” he suggests almost immediately.
“Funny you should say that,” I laugh bitterly.
“Why? You think it’s her?”
“No, never mind,” I try to hide my smile over the irony of his accusation. Of course, my only friend and boyfriend don’t like each other. Things would just be too easy otherwise. “I’m positive it has to be the Elites. All of this started happening after I told this girl in the hall that I wasn’t afraid of them. I know Malcolm heard me. We have to get out of this stupid fucking town.”
He leans back across the bed, propping his head up on his arms as he stares up at the ceiling. I expect him to agree with me. For us to start scheming about the big beautiful lives we’ll have as soon as we get away, like we used to. But instead, he’s silent, and it makes me terribly uneasy.
“What’s going on up there?” I ask, caressing my hand across his forehead.
His eyes meet mine and it looks like something is just on the tip of his tongue. But it fades away into a smile as he leans forward to kiss me again. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when all that happened. But you know I’ll do anything I can to protect you. You’re safe with me.”
He pulls me against his body, reminding me how much I love the warmth of his skin when I’m stretched out next to it. I want to believe I’m safe with him, but sometimes the looming danger feels so big and mysterious that I’m not sure anyone can really protect me. Emmett may have been able to save my life before, but there were so many other things that happened during that time that he couldn’t protect me from. So many things that were done by his own hands.
I push it all from my mind and let out a big sigh as I roll over and slide to the edge of the bed. “I guess I should start getting ready to go,” I groan. “I can’t be out too late or Mom will start to flip out. They’ve been extra fussy about my schedule lately. I guess they don’t want me to be dealing with all this preparation for college while running on no sleep.”
“They’re right,” he insists as my hand slides from his. “Now is not the time to be running on empty.”
I start to gather my clothes from the floor, feeling sad about how things have been between us before tonight. “Hey, you know…we will talk about all of this college stuff soon. Coach helped me narrow it down to a handful of schools and I want to discuss it with you before I decide anything.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he says as he stands up and slides into a t-shirt and boxer shorts. “I want you to pick a school based on what’s best for you. Not what you think will work for me. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”
His words instantly lift some of the heaviness I’ve been feeling lately. “Thank you. I really needed to hear that.”
I turn around to slide back into my boots, looking aimlessly around his room as I go. I notice more clutter on his desk than usual, and then a sheet of graph paper grabs my attention. I step closer and see schematics for some kind of car. From the notes scribbled around it, I can see it’s an energy-efficient model.
“What’s this?” I ask in shock just as he bounds over to try and keep me from seeing it, but it’s too late.
“Nothing!” he defends, snatching it from my hands and shoving it into a drawer. He even goes so far as to brace his body back against the drawer, as if he has to physically stop me from fishing it out and seeing it again.